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Friday, June 17, 2011

Experimenting with Magic Markers and Ice

This post is especially for teachers I work with. Next year we will all be trying out a new unit of study in science and writing workshop. We'll teach the kids how to design their own experiments, and how to write up their results. Baby L and I tried it out the other day, and here's how it went. (You could use the same materials for experiments with your kids, or you could use our "lab report" as a mentor text for their writing.)

Whether you are a teacher, a parent, or caregiver reading this, have fun doing experiments with your tiny scientist! If you know some great links to other fun easy experiments, please share!

Baby L's Lab Report

The questions we had:

What happens when you color on ice with magic markers?

What happens when you stir water with a magic marker?

What happens when you mix the colors?

What happens to soap suds when you add color?

What we used:

1. bowls of water

2. ice cubes

3. markers (nontoxic, washable)

4. some bubble soap

5. spoons and cups

What we did:

1. We had a giant chunk of ice-cubes that had melted together in the ice-tray in the freezer, so we took that out and put it in the big wooden bowl.

2. We poured some water on it to see what would happen. Not much. It made the ice chunk look shiny and slippery.

3. We colored on the ice chunk with magic markers. It was so cool! The ice turned different colors!

4. We poured some more water on the ice chunk, so now there was lots of water in the bowl. The water changed to the color of the magic markers!

5. We moved some of the ice into a new bowl. The ice was clean! No colors when we moved it!

6. We colored the clean ice and poured water on it. The same thing happened- the water changed colors again!

7. Then we poured a little water with no ice into a third bowl and stirred it with a marker. The water changed colors!

8. Last, we stuck in some hand soap to see what would happen. We made lots of suds, but the suds didn't really change color even when we stirred in more magic marker!